BBV - A call to arms, step ONE

[Kelvin Mace]

Folks, if I may be so bold to make a few observations and a suggestion or two. This is a bit of a rant, so please be patient. <g>

By now, it is blindingly obvious that the BBV system is broken, corrupted, and de-facto anti-democratic.

It is a threat to our liberty and the American way of life as we have known it.

What is going on at Diebold is certainly going on at other voting machine companies, since what is going on is the typical arrogant group-think that permeates practically every large American corporation:

1) Unethical and/or illegal acts are carried out because no one stands up and contests them. Those who do are quickly fired.

2) We are right, you are wrong. We never do anything wrong. If we do, we never admit wrong doing, EVER!

3) We have lots of money and lots of lawyers. We will crush anyone who interferes in our attempt to turn a profit.

4) That which they call immorality, we call pragmatism.

5) We own politicians, body and soul. Any politician who does not understand this should see #3.

6) If there is enough profit in it, a public relations agency will be hired to make anything, no matter how odious, acceptable to the public and government. Politians will be bought off to see things our way. If we can't do it here, there is always some country somewhere we can pay off and set up shop in.

With this in mind, we need to realize that only a full out assault in defense of free and honest elections has any chance against these people. Once the elections are controlled by corporations we are truly and totally SCREWED.

Am I exaggerating? Folks, the evidence is there for all to see. Diebold has lied and, in my opinion, broken the law. If you cornered one of these people and grilled them, they would honestly insist that they were not in any way attempting to subvert democracy. And they would probably be right. They don't believe they are, which is what makes them incredibly dangerous. They are just "doing their job", "making a living", "JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS".

Where have we heard THAT before.

The most dangerous people in the world are those who willingly do evil with no conception that what they are doing is evil.

Sad as it may seem, the world is made up mostly of sheep. Actually, the breakdown is something like this:

sheep - 90%
wolves - 8%
shepards - 2%

Folks, we are the shepards, and our job is to protect the sheep.

Up until now, the problem of BBV has been fought by a small handful of people who, with no compensation, no reward, and at considerable expense have taken on the multi-billion dollar BBV Yakuza.

At the moment, *some* elements of the media are waking up and paying attention. We are not cranks and paranoid. We are concerned citizens and thanks to Bev, Eloriel, DemActivist and several others we have compelling evidence of wrong-doing.

Now the fight must be expanded. To do that, we have to convert some sheep to shepards. To do that, we need to educate them.

How? This topic is rather convoluted and dense.

We have to simplify it. Distill it down so that we can explain it to anybody in just a few minutes.

As the core group of Bev's commmandos has more work than they can handle, I am turning to the rest of you to take a crack at helping out.

DUers are by and large intelligent, educated and articulate. Just what we need.

Sit down. Review the evidence and the whole concept of BBV. Write up a two page document that explains the threat. Don't worry about the solution, just answer the question: Why is BBV dangerous to democracy?
Avoid partisanship, your theories on who might be pulling the strings and why, and overly technical explanations (remember, this may be used to educate congressmen who are not to bright, never mind people in the Oval Office).

What I want is a nice two page document that can be passed around as a small PDF, FAXed to people, emailed to people, passed out a rallies, used as a cheat sheet at a meeting of your local election officials.

I ask that you write them up, proof them, try them out on your friends, then send them to me.

[e-mail]

I will pick the best ones (it could be more than one) and this will become the first weapon in our arsenal.

Right wing orgs have PR firms, research firms, focus groups and all the rest of the media muscle money can by.

We have you.

Help us Obiwan Kenobi. You're are only hope.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[Cheswick2.0]

1. kick

I would love to be able to present this information to groups of voters. Is there a way to condense it down to a short list of points, maybe five?

[E_Zapata]

2. IMO, the sheep have to SEE the machines hacked.

The educational aid has to be visual.

I say - do a video demonstration and pass it around the net and by CD/DVD or whatever the tech term is to have a video on CD.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Well, that would be nice....

But finding people with video equipment and the skills to use them in a professional fashion is harder than gettig folks to write a two pages overview of the problem.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[Occulus]

18. What about using

Jim's Hackavote CD to demonstrate this? We have the binaries, the actual election database files... that part, at least, is a snap.

[Kelvin Mace]

19. Because we don't want to go to

jail or sunny Cuba on a charge under DCMA or the Patriot Act.

<g>

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[yella_dawg]

3. I looked into the whole voting machine issue

after the 2002 election. I've got a MS in computer science and ten years experience in the trade. You understate the peril of the situation.

[Kelvin Mace]

16. You bring up an interesting point....

Do we have anybody with *real* credentials defending BBV? All I see are PR flacks, salemen and BBV execs praising this, not computer professionals (and I don't count Dr. Britt Williams who seems to come from the world of IBM 360s).

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[shance]

4. Thanks David***

Great points.

Bottom line its a bipartisan deal, and if we truly are the America we claim to be, candidates must surely win elections on their merit, NOT by their ability to rig elections!!

You may want to re-post the links with all the BBV "101" information for people who are new to the BBV deal so they can review it.

I'll be in touch with a summary.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. I look at Martin and Bobby as Shepherds.

And they come along but rarely. We're Shepard's helpers. Let's round up some sheep!

[Bushfire]

6. May I suggest posting articles to other BB's

like Howard Dean's Blog for America, your local Indymedia websites, local discussion groups, local Democratic meetings, etc. Hit up those who are politically active that don't hang out at DU.

[Kelvin Mace]

28. Good suggestion...

My thoughts exactly.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[yowzayowzayowza]

7. Sometimes itz as simple as askin the right questions!

Do our valiant troops fight and die for a democracy in which "we the people's" ballots are not treated with as much respect as the average dollar bill? Would you throw away a dollar rejected by a machine? Why does Diebold not provide as much security for ballots in their voting systems as the dollars in their ATMs?

edit: spellun.

[Bushfire]

8. Whatreallyhappened.com printed my letter

in the reader letters section today.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/letters.html

Bev's questions to the media, and candidates to ask in Johnson County, IN for their new Diebold machines.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. You touch on future parts of my plan.

1) Overview of the problem.
2) FAQ
3) Talking points for a radio call in show
4) Talking points when talking to your local (state) reps.
5) Questions to ask your local election board.
6) Letter to the editor.

Two topics, "Why Internet Voting Won't Work" and "A Modest Proposal to the BBV Problem" have already been written and I await Bev's vetting for inclusion in the book.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[Bushfire]

20. Thanks David

we all need to get creative, and talk to folks not hooked up to the internet. I've talked to 3 people in the last couple days about 9 / 11, plus BBV who never would have openly talked stuff like this 12 months ago. People are ready to open their minds about facts. Give them resources to go to, and they will be asking for more info.

[Kelvin Mace]

21. Excellent point

We who are wired are forgetting about the folks who still get there news from the usual suspects.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[leftchick]

9. thanks David!

I will do my small part here in NC...

[blm]

10. kick

for a great patriot.

And a good lookin' one, too. ;)

[gristy]

12. Here's what I propose, Dave

I would like to help with your idea of a 2-page distillation of the problem. I can do that I think, but I need 3 pages, and each page is a picture. I am envisioning a powerpoint file (or, a pdf file, if someone can gell me how to write one from powerpoint) showing the "flow" of ballots, votes, and vote totals in three types of systems:

1. A paper-ballot-based system where the paper ballot is the master record (e.g., one using optical scan of paper ballots, like in MN).

2. An electronic-ballot-based system where paper ballots are printed and verified by each voter, and these paper ballots are counted in a challenge or audit, but not for un-contested, un-audited vote tabulation. Votes are counted electronically within the touch-screen voting machine.

3. An electronic-ballot-based system where there are no voter-verified paper ballots, like in GA. A paper trail consisting of paper "tapes" that show only vote totals in each precinct are used to provide backup to the actual electronic transfer of vote totals by modem.

For each type of system I will then show the flow of information in the form of ballots, configuration files, precinct totals, and state totals. I will use different colors to contrast paper-based vote information from electronic vote information. I will design cute little symbols for a voter, a paper ballot, an optical scanner, a touch-screen voting machine, a LAN (used to link all the DRE voting machines in a precinct), a modem, and a central computer for final tally. Next to each cute little symbol (or maybe inside it) I will list all the methods by which the vote might be compromised by both insiders and outsiders at that point.

Things I want to do and points I want to make with these diagrams include

1) Differentiate between insider fraud and outsider fraud. That the former is at least as likely as the latter.
2) Show that security and basic accounting is needed for all 3 systems. Too often the electronic folks whine that "well you need security for paper too!" Well, duh.
3) Show that vote-counting fraud is possible in all 3 systems, but that systems 1 & 2 (using paper ballots) are the only ones that provide the means to identify and correct for fraud.
4) That even though the paper ballots themselves can be corrupted, to do so on a large scale is difficult with well-designed ballot control, as no one individual has control of more than the ballots from a single precinct. And the best ballot control systems always require TWO individuals to control and sign off for them, even at the precinct level.

Please comment, fellow DUers, and David especially. Tell me what you would change or add. Drawing this in powerpoint is going to be a PAIN, so I want to have it all fleshed out before I start.


BTW, I read just a little bit of Checks And Balances In Elections Equipment and Procedures Prevent Alleged Fraud Scenarios on Diebolds site. That 27-page document is a piece of work, you know? Just incredible. I wouldn't even know where to start with a critique, that memo is so bad. But I'll debunk two, just for fun:

Allegation #54 (p. 16): "The Diebold voting machines cannot work in isolation. They must be able to both receive a ballot definition file as input and report voting results as output."

Diebold's Response: This is false. Diebold Election Systems' voting terminals operate in isolation. Non-operational communication to and from the Diebold Election Systems' voting terminals is minimal and tightly controlled. The election database is downloaded to the storage card at the county election offices using either a "gang" programming device or one of several Ballot Stations dedicated to the task. The storage card is then inserted into and sealed in a Ballot Station to be sent to the polls performed on each unit's printer. The primary form of output for the Ballot Station is the result tape. Again, this is an entirely isolated operation performed on each unit's printer.

Gristy's Analysis: Diebold attempts to dodge this allegation though a specious definition of "operation" and tries to imply that since by their definition the terminal is not "operating" when it is communicating, there is no problem. Hah!

Allegation #55 (p. 16): "As described in Section 2, there are essentially two ways to load a voting terminal with an initial election configuration: via some removable media, such as a floppy disk, or over the Internet. In the latter case, the voting terminal could either be plugged directly into the Internet or could use a dial-up connection (the dial-up connection could be to a local ISP, or directly to the election authority's modem banks)."

Diebold's Response: Ballot Station voting terminals are not loaded over the Internet. This would not be practical, as the databases are large and high-speed Internet access is not available in a typical polling place. After the election is over, election results are sent via a private, point-to-point network to a back-end post-processing server.

Gristy's Analysis: Just how large are these files? Are we to regard the sheer size of these files as providing the "security" that these files will not be downloaded over the internet? I think not. Further, Diebold attempts to imply that since "election results are sent via a private, point-to-point network to a back-end post-processing server", that the results are immune to outsider hacking during communication. Now unless the state has its own state-wide, independent, wired data communication links, which they don't, then what is being referred to as a "network" is something that runs over telephone lines. The fact that it might be characterized as "private" and "point-to-point" is irrelevant.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. You bring up some good ideas,

A Powerpoint presentation is a GREAT idea, especially one comparing the systems. Of course, I can't FAX it, hand it out at a rally (well, not cheaply <s>) or explain it at a meeting without some serious prep.

So, you see why I am concentrating on 2 pages.

Short read, easy to FAX, email, etc. A text email gets *much* more circulation than a PDF of other type of attached file (and people are getting paranoid about attachments).

However, a PP presentation can be used and we should develope one.

Perhaps (and I am thinking aloud here), we could break up the topic into a serious of two page vignettes. At the end of each vignette is the title of the next one.

Re: DBD's "Checks & Balances", that puts me in mind of a topic for one paper, "Common Myths About BBV".

Re: DBD's claim that communication is "tightly controlled", how do you tightly control wireless communication, especially with encryption at 64 bits or less?

Re: DBD's claim of database size: I agree, how big a file is it? Your average precinct might have 1,000 voters, hardly and amount likely to tax even a 33K connection. All other points you raise apply.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[gristy]

15. Here's some clarification, in response to your comments.

A Powerpoint presentation is a GREAT idea, especially one comparing the systems. Of course, I can't FAX it, hand it out at a rally (well, not cheaply or explain it at a meeting without some serious prep.

It's a "powerpoint presentation" only in the sense that is what I am using to create it. It's a pdf file that can be emailed, or it can be printed to make flyers, or it can be a .gif file, for inclusion in the body of most any email. And I say it needs to a set of diagrams (with some text) because it needs to be more VISUAL and needs to demand as little effort from our target audience as possible. Our target audience is often very BUSY, INATTENTIVE, and/or just doesn't really care. The diagrams I am envisioning, if I do them well, will literally connect the dots for the reader. It will do it so well that it will speak FOR you in any presentation. You can pump up said presentation if you like with your own additional material. Vote stealing and election fraud - and understanding how it can happen - is not easy to understand. If it was, we would have had this problem licked a long time ago. And once printed, you CAN hand it out at rallies. And it will make the point so simply and clearly that the reader WILL be able to understand in spite of standing outside, in a crowd, with lots of noise all around. The October 25th rally in DC comes to mind as a good example. You have a LOT of competition for each person's attention.

So, you see why I am concentrating on 2 pages.

Yes, front and back of a single 8 1/2 x 11. Makes sense.

Short read, easy to FAX, email, etc. A text email gets *much* more circulation than a PDF of other type of attached file (and people are getting paranoid about attachments).

Yes, but the % of people who will grasp what you are trying to say at the level you need them to understand it will be lower than with some well-drawn figures (with some text, admittedly).

[Kelvin Mace]

26. Good points

I'd love to see what you put together. No one says we have to use only one method of attack. <g>

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[grasswire]

17. I also think...

...it's important to have something very simple that could be a flier for general audiences or could be boilerplate for letters to the editor. The analogy about the two rooms was a good start. Is anyone able to state the scope of the problem and discovery in one paragraph?

[Kelvin Mace]

27. My idea is to create

a PDF anyone can download and use for educating others. My main concern that if we are to make it feasable, we have to keep it cheap. We would like to have a single sheet of paper that a person could print up cheaply and pass out at gatherings. We could have more extensive docs for him/her to educate themselves with in order to answer questions.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
1237 Elon Place
High Point, NC 27263
http://www.plan9.org

[dusty64]

22. kick.

:kick:

[RedEagle]

23. Everyone has an idea how to fight this

Kick!

[shirlden]

24. Kick

:kick: n/t

[Vadem]

25. kick, again!

:kick:

[RedEagle]

29. Everyone can do something!

Kick!